


Do You Really Remember Me?

by Vtas



Series: What it means to remember [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Past Lives, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 18:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17289068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vtas/pseuds/Vtas
Summary: Link has once again completed his quest, but there were complications from the shrine of resurrection. Eternal heros and death reversing technology don’t exactly mix.No one is as happy as they feel they ought to be.





	Do You Really Remember Me?

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this in my head for like a year now and kept wanting to have the whole story worked out before I posted anything but that just turned into not actually posting anything. So hopefully putting up something will encourage me to actually write the rest. No beta so please let me know if you spot any errors.

After he had shot the final light arrow link let himself glide to the ground by his horse, he had done all he could, what bones that weren’t broken ached, his hands trembled cramped into the hold he had kept on his para-glider and bow, the ache in them long past as exhaustion numbed his senses. The whole of his focus now on painful drag of icy air into his lungs and heat of his own breath clouding the air with his exhale.

In. Out. In. Out. As the grey receded it was hard to tell if the tinge of red in his vision was from a burst blood vessel or from Ganons malice alone. 

He felt something touch his cheek, a warm and kind, but distant caress and instinctively moved toward it, but like chasing the wind it stayed distant and got no firmer. But in turning his head he finally saw her, battered and worn and beautiful, brimming with holy light. A light that now as he looked upon her realized he knew, that he missed desperately, like a missing limb. He ached for it, for the taste of it, no only to be near it but to wield it. It ached to only get to gaze upon something that he remembered being infused with so completely. 

And for all it ached it was a balm, and he smiled to see his goddess trapping the beast once more. For a moment he could just rest and watch her, he had served his purpose she was free. 

He knelt crumpled there for a long moment as he watched her seal the beast, as it thrashed and writhed and shrunk, compressed by the weight of her divine will, into nothing, as it vanished. He watched as the red bled out of the sky, as daylight returned, as she turned to face him.  
It was then that he rose, every part of him singing for her, for something familiar, something constant in this world that was so much like his, and so devastatingly foreign.

She told him that she had believed in him, that she had been watching him, and then she thanked him, and called him the hero of Hyrule. For a moment the discord inside of him was soothed, like so much shattered glass evened out to form a single mosaic. It was a single call that every part of him could answer. 

And then the mosaic was dashed upon the ground, every part clawing and bellowing and aching in ways he couldn’t know.   
She had asked if he remembered her.

He had thought that when her powers had unlocked she would, and had returned to him. But now as he gave in and looked at her face, into her eyes, for all the warmth in them, he knew she did not remember him.

How could she and still ask him that? If she remembered him she would know that he knew every inch of her being that he was her servant with his whole self, he existed for nothing less than her. They were entwined in the space beyond, in the sacred realm, they forgot each time, but each time they remembered, not everything, but what mattered, how much they knew the other in presence if not in form or act. She did not even know herself if she was asking that, for his goddess would not forget her chosen. She couldn’t.

Her names swelled on his tongue but even as he opened his mouth no sound escaped but rather tears overwhelmed him. Her gentle smile dropped as she rushed to him, always quick to comfort, apologies for questioning him. Of course he remembered her, and if there were gaps that was ok too, she went on about how she was proud, how he need not be ashamed of those lost, that they had won.

turned himself away, choking down the shards and the screaming, fighting back the mourning within himself. She may not remember but she was still Zelda. The cacophony cried back that she was not Their Zelda.

They had saved her, saved Hyrule, that’s what mattered. If no one understood them, if they could not unload their burden, if this time Zelda was spared that ache was that not better? If after being denied a century she was not forced to mourn the eons was that not better?

He stifled the disquiet within himself and used this thread of thankful grief to bind the shambles together. 

He wiped his tears with his blood stained cuff and turned to face her, falling it to a parade rest, alert, awaiting orders.

She did not remember him, but she was Zelda and her could protect her, all else was irrelevant.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this all in one sitting so I'll probably come back and re-edit this latter. Any feedback is appreciated as this is my first addition to the fandom and the first bit of fiction I've written in a while.


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